ALSC initiatives & special projects

National Initiatives

El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day)
El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day), known as Día, is a nationally recognized initiative that emphasizes the importance of literacy for all children from all backgrounds. It is a DAILY commitment to linking children and their families to diverse books, languages and cultures. Through Día, libraries work to nurture cognitive and literacy development in ways that honor and embrace a child’s home language and culture.

Every Child Ready to Read
Every Child Ready to Read® @ your library® (ECRR) incorporates simple practices, based on research, to help parents and caregivers develop early literacy skills in children from birth to age five. ECRR helps public libraries have an even greater impact on early literacy through an approach that focused on educating parents and caregivers. By educating the primary adults in a child's life to learn more about the importance of early literacy and how to nurture pre-reading skills at home, the effect of library efforts is multiplied many times.

Everyday Advocacy
The purpose of Everyday Advocacy is to educate ALSC members about the importance of advocacy and what roles they can take in making advocacy seem important and feasible. The site is meant as a go-to resource for both day-to-day advocacy and crisis advocacy. Visitors will find that the site empowers librarians and library staff to make a difference in their communities and beyond.

Special Projects

Babies Need Words Every Day resources were created by the ALSC Early Childhood Programs and Services Committee. These resources represent ALSC’s commitment to bridging the 30 million word gap. The visually appealing posters deliver simple, effective rhymes, games and other ways for parents and caregivers to communicate with babies. A customizable book list provides suggestion of books that parents can request at their local library. Over the course of the year, ALSC will encourage librarians to get the word out to their community partners about these free resources to engage them in the effort to bridge the word gap.

Curiosity Creates began as a grant-funded project and has since turned into a proclamation for librarians doing innovative work with children. In 2015, ALSC used an $800,000 grant from Disney to issue 79 minigrants of up to $7,500 each to public libraries for the implementation for creativity programming. ALSC also developed resources that will continue to support the ongoing work of librarians seeking to start similar programs in their communities. Visit the Curiosity Creates page to view a video compilation of some of the grant-funded programs, download the informative best practices resource, Curiosity Creates: Innovative Library Programming for Children, and learn about the 79 library recipients. ALSC librarians are also welcome to share their creativity programming ideas and photos on twitter using the hashtag #alsccreates.